<p>This paper investigates the thermoviscoelastic response of skin tissue to thermal shock. Our study focuses on a semi-analytical treatment of the temperature and elastic field of a typical class of viscoelastic biological tissue, namely skin tissue, and takes into account its temperature-dependent thermal properties. To achieve this, we propose a coupled model of the fractional Kelvin–Voigt viscoelastic model with the fractional phase-lag Pennes bioheat conduction. Then a generalized time-fractional biothermoviscoelastic governing equation is established and initial boundary value conditions for monolayer skin tissue with finite thickness are given. The Laplace transform method and its inversion are applied to analyze the temperature change and elastic displacement in the viscoelastic skin tissue. The influences of variable thermal property, viscosity and fractional order on the temperature distribution and the elastic displacement are analyzed.</p>